Dream State

Waking up in the midst of a dream, sweaty and crying, chest and throat aching and feeling as though you just finished a triathalon, makes my heart hurt for a day or two. The heaviness and brutality of dreaming of something that I know can never be changed is the worst.

I remember what the dream was and the conflict it was trying to make sense of.

People around me have no idea that I carry a painful burden of knowing I have failed my kids and that as hard as I try to get close to them, they won't let me. I cannot do this all alone, do they know that?

Finding out on social media that one son is home on leave from the Marine Corps and has made no effort to see me - even after I reached out to him while he was home - I cannot shake the feeling of not being good enough for him.

Matthew will be graduating from college this Spring and I feel enormously proud of him for having stayed with it.

There is no easy way to think of Hunter without feeling somehow betrayed by him and hurting because it was he who abandoned me. Yeah, that's fucked up.

Absent parent. That is what I am to my kids.

What my kids - and people around me - don't know is that I am also absent in my life and going through the motions just biding my time until somehow, some way, I reach the other side.

Is it wrong to hope that the next round of medical tests reveals that I am (finally) on my way?

That's fucked up, too.

Coming Undone

My life is so far out of balance it's all I can do to prevent myself from going completely under. I'm stretched thin with the commitments I've made -- yet that's not how it started out.

Back in December, when the Ski Patrol Director called me and asked me if I was still interested in becoming part of the ski patrol, I didn't hesitate to say yes. With the exception of my marriage being in complete turmoil and my job, I had nothing else going on. Then my health issue multiplied exponentially, Hunter had to be placed in a psychiatric hospital and my marriage continued to suck.

Then the snowboarding season ended and I had a few months of downtime from the ski patrol before starting the Outdoor Emergency Care portion in April.

Now, between attending classes two nights a week, self-study the rest of the week, visiting Hunter because he's still in the hospital, working at a job I love, watching my health continue to deteriorate, and trying to give CPR to my marriage, I am stick-a-fork-in-me-done.

Perfect example: last week were mid-terms. We had a written exam and four scenarios we had to pass in order for the instructors to know we are not complete idiots. (Apparently 90% of our class failed.) The scenarios included a deep laceration of a forearm, a man needing CPR/AED surrounded by live electrical wires, a broken wrist and a dislocated shoulder. In order to pass the scenarios, the instructors have a checklist of things that need to be done and said -- most of it in a specific order.

(The mid-term does not count toward our "grade", it was just a sanity check.)

I failed all of them, except one. I also failed the written portion of the exam. I feel like a big idiot. So many pieces of the scenarios we had to participate in are things I do everyday at my job.

----------> Bang Head Here <----------

I am thisclose to quitting this class and taking it again next year. Except if I do that, I have to wait another year for the coveted red parka.

Ugh!

My adrenalin and nervousness, if measured, would have been pretty close to the moon. No wonder I failed.

One Last Chance by Daughtry

Tell me what you need and I will find a way to stop the bleeding;
No, don't add to my mistakes.
Tell me you're not leaving and I'll tell you everything you need to know.
Don't throw it all away, don't say my words are just too late.

I don't want to be left behind, I've been so blind to all that I have broken.
Can we put this back together?
No more empty promises, they don't exist; just me out in the open.
I know this will take time, can you give me one last chance to make it right?

You say the story's ending but I think it's time we stop pretending;
No, can't let you turn the page.
Does your heart remember when we used to say forever, don't let go.
Don't throw it all away; don't say these words are just too late.

I don't want to be left behind, I've been so blind to all that I have broken.
Can we put this back together?
No more empty promises, they don't exist; just me out in the open.
I know this will take time, can we put the past behind us,
Tonight I'm gonna fight for you; just give me one last chance to make it right,
Last chance to make it right.

I don't want to be left behind, I've been so blind to all that I have broken.
Can we put this back together?
No more empty promises, they don't exist; just me out in the open.
I know this will take time, can you give me one last chance to make it right?

Give me one last chance to make it right,
A last chance to make it right
A last chance to make it right
No more empty promises, they don't exist; just me out in the open.
I know this will take time, can you give me one last chance to make it right?

~ Daughtry

Connor

You may never know how much your years of silence have taken a toll on me.

You may never hear how much it hurts that you do not communicate with me.

You may never hear or know these things because we may never see or talk to each other again.

I have reached out over and over and over to you.

It's YOUR turn.

I love you,

Mom

Closure

What is it? Seriously. What is it really? When someone asks for closure, what is it they are really asking for?

I have been seeking some sort of closure on several things in my past ~ mostly related relationships, but then aren't we all?

Does closure mean some sort of reconciliation ~ not of the relationship itself ~ for our minds to wrap around in order for us to walk away without looking back? Ever.

Is pursuing closure another way to have the last word?

For me, personally, it's about unanswered questions about the relationship itself. For instance, what were the mistakes I made in that particular relationship and were they what caused the relationship to end? Or did the relationship ending have anything to do with me at all?

I never set out to deliberately make the same mistake more than once, yet there are times where I deliberately do nothing to stop it. I'm not trying to be malicious, yet I know that is exactly what it looks like, it usually just seems like the thing to do at the time.

Right now I am stuck in a cycle of wanting something that I not only can't have, but shouldn't want to have in the first place. This dilemma has caused much distress in my marriage and has brought it to the brink of ending it completely.

Closure

Ah, that word again ~ closure. Something I completely suck at because I have no idea what closure means to me, specifically. It'll just be another relationship that I can say I never had "closure" on and ache forever because of it.

Many years ago, when I was a junior in high school, I met a cop from the community from which I worked. We were just friends for a very long time before we became something much more. It was something that happened naturally and it was something that I truly wanted at that time. Something I was given in that relationship was brutally taken away and, to this very day, it haunts the hell out of me. I need closure.

What I have always wanted to know from him was why he never called after I was put in that position and why he didn't stay for the fallout. Those aren't the only questions I have for him. Having my many questions answered, in this case, means closure for me. It's difficult to say whether or not it would be complete closure, I would just like the opportunity to find out.

There is one other person I had a relationship with that, if given the opportunity, I would like to ask questions of and maybe find...yep...closure.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One of my biggest detriments is that I feel emotions at such a deep, deep level, yet I am not able to compartmentalize them. I feel that if I could compartmentalize them, especially past relationships, not just men but relationships with a few of my family members, too, then I would be able to close those chapters for good.

Instead, I walk around with all these emotions (some that go back many, many, MANY years) piled one on top of the other and, combined, they emit a buzzing sound inside my head. I'm very certain this is the one of the major reasons I have so much trouble sleeping ~ or at least turning off my brain on command. I really don't want to be a walking bundle of emotions. It saps so much of my energy. On the other hand, were it not for my emotional experiences, I would not be able to do what I do now for a living.

For example, today I had a patient with congestive heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and several other ailments that, combined, make it nearly impossible for her to breathe properly.

This patient, Bella, has been in to see us every week for the past several weeks with one goal in mind: to be able to take a deep, cleansing breath. While doing her intake today, before the doctor came to examine her, she made a statement ~ “I’m at the end of my rope…” ~ and that resonated with me. I was able to draw from my own (recent and ongoing!) personal health issues and understand exactly what she meant.

I didn’t do what many people do and say “I know how you feel; I’ve been there”. I knew actions would speak louder than words so I just wrapped my arms around her and held her while she cried on my scrubs.

My vast emotional experiences allow me to empathize on a much deeper level with my patients. Unfortunately (or is that fortunately?) my emotional experiences with my patients adds to my emotional experiences heap and the buzzing in my head continues.

Sheesh…

If only I could insert a memory card and do an emotional dump…